The Neuroscience of Freedom and Creativity

discrimination.
Delay discount
Depreciation of a benefit, reward, or gain on account of the necessity to wait for it; the longer the wait time, the greater is the depreciation. Delay discount is a major source of consumer credit and a motive for reliance on government at the expense of private savings.
Desert
Ethically justified reward or punishment.
Determinism
The philosophy that states that for everything that happens in the world there is a cause. Events are bound by causality in such a way that any state of physical nature is completely determined by prior or concomitant states.
Drug addiction
Physical – that is, biological – dependence on the continued ingestion or injection of certain toxic agents such as alcohol, cocaine, amphetamines, and opium-derived substances. When severe, it severely curtails personal freedom.
Dualism
In cognitive neuroscience, the position that brain and mind are two different, though interactive, substances.
Economic liberalism
Economic philosophy that advocates the protection of private property, private decisions, and the free market to foster productivity and progress.
Emotional PA cycle
Parallel to, and interactive with, the cognitive PA cycle. It incorporates limbic and autonomic structures of the nervous system in a cybernetic cycle of emotion, where sensing leads to emotional response, which leads to new sensing, and so on.
Episodic memory
Memory of personal experiences.
Epistemology
The nature and scope (limitations) of knowledge in a certain field.
Forensic
Having to do with the law.
Hebbian principles
Laws of synaptic change at the basis of learning and memory, as postulated by Donald Hebb.
Hemicycle of liberty
The aggregate of perceptual and executive cortices involved in the PA cycle, where choices and decisions are made.
Hippocampus
A portion of ancient cortex, part of the limbic system, situated like the amygdala in the depth of the temporal lobe. In the human, it is essential for the consolidation of short-term into long-term memory. It is one of the first brain structures to be affected in Alzheimer’s dementia, with its consequent memory problems. In the human and in some lower species, it has also been shown to be involved in spatial navigation.
Homeostasis
Maintenance of equilibrium in the internal milieu of the body.
Hormone
A chemical released by a cell or a gland in one part of the body that sends out messages, through the blood, that affect the functions or metabolism of cells in other parts of the body.
Hypothalamus
Nuclear complex at the top of the brainstem dedicated to visceral functions through autonomic and hormonal outputs. Its key function is the maintenance of homeostasis. The hypothalamus controls body temperature, sleep, and circadian cycles. It is also involved in instinctual and emotional functions related to feeding, sex, flight, and aggression.
Imagination
The ability to form new images and sensations in one’s mind when they are not perceived through sight, hearing, or other senses.
Inhibition
In neurophysiology, the blocking or restraint of neuronal excitation. It acts on synapses, making them less excitable by sources of stimulation. Inhibition may act as a generalized restraint of activity to the benefit of restorative functions like sleep. It is also a fundamental component of attention and selective movement; by reciprocal inhibition of irrelevant material or by relaxation of antagonistic muscles, inhibition enhances focusing and selective contrast, thus increasing the efficiency of sensory and motor functions. In the cerebral cortex, and thus cognitively relevant, the most common inhibitory neurotransmitter is GABA (gamma-aminobutyric acid).
Inhibitory control
An executive function of the prefrontal cortex that, in the processing of attention, planning, decision-making, and working memory, inhibits irrelevant, contradictory, or distracting influences of any source that can in some manner interfere with current action.
Intuition
The ability to acquire knowledge, and to act upon it, without consciousness or the use of reason.
Keynesian economics
Economic philosophy that advocates the intervention of the government by certain measures, such as the monetary policy of the central bank, to stimulate the economy and to minimize the cyclical tendency of private economies.
Limbic system
A set of structures in the middle of the brain, around the major interhemispheric commissures (including the corpus callosum), that support a variety of